


Choke On It (Lies, Pride, Ugly Truths)

by Half_SubmergedinPurgatory



Series: Starring Role [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And so does Toni Stark, Background Stuckony since this is Starring Role verse, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Choking, Dom Tony Stark, F/M, Light BDSM, Mentions of Hydra's Violence Towards Bucky, Porn With Plot, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Bucky Barnes, Possessive Tony Stark, Self-Recrimination Exercised in a Semi-Healthy Way (Eventually), Smut, Sub Bucky Barnes, Woman on Top, breath play, but they're working on it, sexually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 14:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory
Summary: There are times when Bucky slips into the deep deep dark, drowns himself in self-recrimination and guilt until he's over his head in red. He needs to - his ghosts aren't going to appeased by anything else.He used to spiral into it alone. Nowadays, Toni comes along for the ride and guides his descent. She wraps her slender fingers around the silver chain of his dog tags and chokes him.One twist round his neck for every hateful thought. One loop loosened for every scrap of self-love.





	Choke On It (Lies, Pride, Ugly Truths)

Sometimes, Bucky could hear the whispers of his old handlers. Right next to his ears, invading his personal space, never respecting the fact that The Soldier didn't like having anyone at his back.   
  
Sometimes, he hears an old familiar taunt,   
  
_"Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it."_  
  
Laughter, a shock applied expertly to the back of his neck ( _making the arm seize, making something slip loose in the mechanism_ ).  
  
_"You wouldn't know what to do with your mouth if we unmuzzled you, Soldat. You'd take your first breath as a free man, pull it in, a big gasping gulp of it drying out your tongue, and then..."_  
  
An ugly smile, a shock, another shock-  
  
_"You'd cover that free mouth of yours all by yourself, make a muzzle of your own - do it. **Do it** \- there we go. Yeah, you'd probably fuckin' suffocate." _

______

Sometimes Bucky sits up late at night, staring out the windows of the Tower from shadows Steve can't track him in. Sometimes he imagines trying to fit every person he's ever killed into the city of New York. He sees them pile up, first a trickle, then a river, a wave-   
  
An ocean of blood.   
  
One that rises until it presses against the windows of the Tower's highest point - the penthouse.   
  
He used to let himself spiral in the room he shared with Steve. But Steve always held him tightly through it, never let him slip under the waves, filled his ears with love and affection and...  
  
And Bucky didn't believe a word of it. Not on those nights. And it made the affection ring hollow on better nights, too, their friendship tainted by lies.   
  
_"It's not your fault."_  
  
Lies.   
  
_"You didn't do it."_  
  
Lies.   
  
_"You didn't have a choice."_  
  
**Lies.**  
  
So he tried to pay his penance in other ways. He went on missions. He met the rising tide of blood, adding to it by **choice** , but good things didn't come easy to him. Still felt **false**. And he still felt the need to spiral (t _o dive off the Tower, let himself sink below the waves, drifting down down down into a graveyard of his own making_ ).   
  
He longed for it.   
  
The ghosts in his head longed for it.

 _"You'd probably fuckin' suffocate."_  
  
He hated thinking his handlers were right. He was suffocating, though. The muzzle came off, the leash came off, but Bucky put them back on himself - mission after mission after mission. Each one was stripping something away from him. Each one was making him more dangerous, making the tide a little higher, and right as he was about to drown-  
  
Toni's hand wrapped around his throat and pulled him free.   
  
_"Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it."_  
  
Losing air in Toni's arms certainly felt like freedom. 

______

  
The next time he spiralled, he came up to the penthouse. He let himself drown in her room even though she wasn't home ( _did it on purpose - did it so he'd be alone with the memory of her fingers fluttering against his pulse, the look in her eyes-_ ).   
  
It became a habit.   
  
He needed the descent less often once Toni finally accepted him and Steve as **hers**. Every touch from her was like a brand, marking him as **something** worth having - **someone** worth keeping. He didn't deserve it, but he wasn't willing to let it go. He would gorge himself on whatever pieces of herself she gave up.  
  
He would spend his time in her spaces.   
  
He'd fall apart in them.  
  
Of course she eventually caught him. He had probably wanted her to. He wanted Toni in every situation, even when he was sinking into the filth and muck and blood of his own mind ( _he was a sick fuck for wanting her there, too. Wanting her in battle, wanting her in his nightmares, wanting her when Hydra tortured him last. Toni deserved better, but he wouldn't let her have it. He wouldn't let her have anyone else - not at this point. He couldn't bare the thought_ ).  
  
Light flooded the dark space Bucky had created for himself beside the window as Toni entered the room, her eyes locking onto him in an instant.  
  
"I wasn't aware my room was open, Four Seasons."  
  
She said, softening her sharp edges for him ( _her voice far more gentle than it ever was for anyone else_ ), sinking her bare feet into the carpet as the elevator closed behind her. She mumbled something through her earpiece to Jarvis and total darkness swept the room once again.  
  
"I was a tool of genocide. I shaped the future and I made it worse."   
  
Bucky finds himself telling her, slipping back into the spiral ( _back under the waves_ ) as she padded towards him. Her gaze was impossibly heavy. It pushed him further down.  
  
"Without me, Hydra couldn't have made as much progress as it did. Spread as far as it did. How many organizations exist because of me?"  
  
He asks himself, already knowing the answer. He'd stolen more than enough Shield records, more than enough Hydra plans, to know that modern fascism was at least partially built on his back.   
  
Shaped by his fist.  
  
Toni kneels in front of him. There's a desperate clawing fear in the back of his throat. It tells him she'll hold him tight, tell him pretty lies, try to erase the past. That she'll take away his penance.   
  
He looks into her eyes.   
  
**Possessive.**  
  
**Interested.**  
  
**Filled with intent.**  
  
It makes something inside of him shiver loose ( _something in the mechanism that made the man, the machine-_ ).  
  
"You want to fall, Angel Face?"   
  
She asks him, reaching out, twining her fingers into his hair. He leans into it despite himself. He doesn't want this careful touch, but he wants her. Wants her in every single way, even when he's destroying himself, even when he doesn't deserve it.   
  
She yanks hard, leaning in and hissing in his ear,   
  
"Then you don't do it alone. **You're mine, Bucky.** "

______

 _"You wouldn't know what to do with your mouth if we unmuzzled you, Soldat. You'd take your first breath as a free man, pull it in, a big gasping gulp of it drying out your tongue, and then..."_  
  
What would his handlers think of him now? Stripped bare, spread out naked on Toni Stark's bed, cradling her in his lap. HIs cock sunk right into the core of her, his dog tags wrapped around her fist.   
  
Her clever mechanic's hands controlling his breath, winding the chain against his neck even as she tightened around him.   
  
"We're going to play a game. Are you going to be good for me, Soldier?"  
  
She asks him, pulling her hips upward until the head of his cock is just teasing at her entrance. The single point of contact is the only goddamn thing he can focus on other than the chain biting into his skin. He bares his throat to her, tugging experimentally against her grip on his tags ( _firm and unyielding_ ) without answering.   
  
Toni chuckles throatily. She sinks slowly back into his lap, plunging him inch by inch back into the heat and wet of her, until he's halfway back **home**. She stops there and hold completely still. He tries to thrust, but she moves with him, keeping him seated exactly where she wants him.   
  
Her hand rests just below his throat, wrapped in his dog tags as she effectively leashes him. A stray thought shudders through him - she could keep him like this, half inside of her, halfway to losing himself in her, halfway home, forever. Toni was patient enough for it. Could make him stay there and suffer until he answered her.  
  
A pleasure strong enough to be pain lances through his hips, up his spine, clenching his hands and curling his toes.  
  
"Yes."  
  
He tells her,   
  
"I'll be good."   
  
She grins at him, all sharp-toothed indulgence, and he wonders what she'll do next.   
  
_"You'd cover that free mouth of yours all by yourself, make a muzzle of your own."_  
  
Would she try to silence the thoughts in his head? Drown out the apologies, fill up his broken pieces with her own-  
  
The chain around his neck tightens painfully, cutting out his breath for a second.  
  
_"Yeah, you'd probably fuckin' suffocate."_

"You're going to tell me everything that's running through your mind, Soldier."   
  
Toni says, reaching down with her free hand to wind her fingers between his metal ones. She gives him a cautious squeeze, making his heart hiccup in his chest. Her index taps out a rhythm, one that asks,   
  
"Is this ok?"  
  
Even as her mouth says,   
  
"You're going to tell me every gory detail, every bit of red in your ledger, without interruption."   
  
He squeezes her hand back and struggles to inhale.   
  
"Every time you tell me about how much you hate yourself, though..."  
  
Toni says, gaze drifting over his exposed throat like a caress,   
  
"I give this,"  
  
She yanks on his tags,   
  
"A little twist. A little less air for you to speak with."   
  
She looks him in the eyes, shifts in his lap _(dragging the head of his dick across one of her favourite spots, making her bite her lip and shiver_ ),   
  
"You'll suffocate if you can't tell me why you deserve to live."   
  
Toni bends her head, nuzzling against his fluttering pulse, catching the chain in her teeth as she bites him, marks him as **hers** -   
  
"Every twist earns you a thrust. You don't talk, we don't move. Fair?"  
  
She murmurs, kissing the shell of his ear, tightening the chain again. Bucky rocks his hips forward, laughing breathlessly as she deftly pulls him out until only an inch of him is inside of her. He thrusts again, but she keeps him there.   
  
He can feel the spiral just underneath his skin. Bubbling away in the core of him, bordered by pleasure and love and **Toni**.   
  
"Fair."   
  
He says. 

______

  
That's how it starts, a ritual ( _a trial, a penance, a game_ ) that only takes place in dark rooms on dark days, far from Steve's well-meaning brightness.   
  
Bucky and Toni in bed together, her perched like a princess in his lap, his tags pressed into her palm ( _leaving his name, his number, his rank in her skin, impressions that last for hours after they're done. He loves it. Fucks her again sometimes just at the sight of it_ ). Bucky telling her every dark thing inside of himself while fucking her, revelling in the filth of it ( _he was a sick bastard, but now he can tell her that, he can say it and slide into her and satisfy the burning lust in his gut even as his lungs burn even brighter for oxygen_ ). Losing air, vision going spotty, anoxia and euphoria clinging to him and making his movements sluggish ( _the slow drag of his cock against the hard ridges at the mouth of her pussy, feeling the pressure of her walls slowly give way, moving around him like an embrace_ ).   
  
Sinking into his self-loathing. Choking on it, right on the brink.   
  
**Suffocating.**  
  
Then, self-preservation kicking in, finding one good goddamn thing to say about himself. The oxygen high sweeping through him, making all the pretty lies he's heard sound so much sweeter, making him try them on for size if only to keep pumping his hips.  
  
Cumming to Toni praising him ( _"Good boy." Fuck, **yes**_ ).

He talks about The Soldier usually, but **this time** she doesn’t let him. Not in this game they play in the dark, not after the mission they just had ( _rolling through Germany and flattening a nest of Hydra scum who had Bucky's old records, knew what he'd been before The Soldier_ ).  
  
Toni wants all of his secrets, not just the ones she can read in mission reports, his little red journal, or top secret files. She holds him on the brink for an hour, giving him just enough attention to keep him hard, keep him present, but not letting him sink into her or into his head.   
  
Eventually, he cracks.   
  
He doesn't tell her about his time as The Soldier. Instead, he tells her about when he was just **a** soldier.   
  
Tells her about his desperation in the trenches, the fear that filled him, the fear that prevented him from enlisting ( _the draft had to drag him in kicking and screaming. A coward_ ). 

Tells her about the survival instinct that gripped him by the throat and made him fight. Made him bond with his men, made him loyal, made him everything he had to be because he didn't want to die. About the emptiness that hollowed him out and the ever present urge to fill it in those days - sex, booze, death.   
  
Tells her how the shape was always there - Hydra just had to fill it. 

His tags, the tags of a soldier, wind and wind and wind as his back bows and head tilts back. They wind even tighter as his hips stutter, as a flush climbs up his chest and darkens his face. They bite into his skin, steal all his breath, make him choke and buck and FIGHT ( _that survival instinct rearing its head, unleashed and filling up his empty spaces_ ). 

Toni rides him through it like an after-thought, dark eyes fixed solely on his mouth, waiting for him to choke out something else. Giving him her sole attention even as his mind starts fuzzing on the edges. Gives him all the satisfaction he could ever want while keeping him on a razor's edge ( _drenched inside of her, then pulled out into the cold between words, begging for the heat again, begging for the pleasure that whites out everything else-_ ).   
  
She holds him down, watches his mouth, and waits,  
  
"Choke something out, Soldier. **Do it.** "  
  
She whispers into his ear, pressing her breasts against his chest and making his hands twitch with the aching desire to touch. Her free hand, wrapped tightly in his, squeezes as she purrs,  
  
"Because if you don't, you won’t have breath left to speak." 

So he tells her about the times he took the shot and didn’t regret it.

About keeping The Howlies alive, saving Dugan from a shot to the leg.

About children with hungry mouths and hungry eyes, about bread in his pockets and walks in the city, about starving and **starving** until Steve forced him to choke down his own rations.

About Steve. About Steve being ALIVE even though he was ordered to kill him.

About Toni being above him.

About the way he couldn’t regret a single step, not really, not without knowing if some other path would get him **here (** _the chain goes nearly slack_ ).

He thinks that must make him a bad man.

The loosening chain tightens.

He tells her it's true. He's a sick fuck. He's willing to shoulder all that death for a single taste of her.

It tightens again.

People would be alive if he had've died.

The chain strangles him and he meets Toni's gaze, sure and steady. She sees the challenge in his gaze ( _answers it in kind - God, he loves the way that she could make him burn at just a look, make him feel like he had to prove himself to her_ ). She lifts her pussy out of his lap, then slides down smooth as silk, breaking their rules ( _he's supposed to only thrust in when he tells her something, then pull right back out, always cold, always wanting-_ ).

She settles him there, right in the core of her, and clenches tight around him. It breaks something in him, the hazy restraint that he just manages to cling to with an internal litany of,   
  
"Follow the rules. Be good for her." 

His vision is going dark and spotty with oxygen depravation as she clenches around him again. As she moans, grinding her hips down in little circles. Lets him fuck into her for a few blinding moments of pleasure that have tension coiling in his gut.

Then, she lifts again, leaves him cold and thrusting blindly. Right as he growls in frustration, clenches her hand tight, she kisses him on his stubbornly closed lips and inches back down.

When he gasps, using up the last of his air, she whispers into his open mouth,

"People would be dead if you died, too."

And goes to loosen the chain, calling the game quits. Before she can, his metal hand catches her wrist, his fingers pressing down hard to prevent the rotation.

Bucky stays there for a moment, choking on the edge, before managing to mouth,

"People would be dead if I died, too."

Only then does he let her loosen the chain. Only then does he **deserve** it.

The influx of air is heady, filling his tingling extremities with bliss. Suddenly, Toni feels so much hotter around him, so much wetter, so much more ALIVE. Fuck, she feels so good. She always feels so good, but right on the edge, she always feels divine. Alive, here and real with him, owning every inch of his ruined heart.

He thrusts into her, moaning, and she tugs his tags harshly. A reminder.

"I’m allowed to exist.'  
  
He gasps, driving himself into her deeper, harder ( _watching the way she stretched around him, wetness dribbling down his cock, soaking the sheets beneath them_ ).

Another tug.

"I’m allowed to exist, even when I’m like this."  
  
He says, half-whining, half-whispering, air still in short supply.

He thrusts, blanking out in a moment of pure focus ( _his nerves were on fire, his whole body a livewire, the only important parts touching her, damn the rest - he was getting close. God, he'd been close since they started)._ The hand that had been twined with his suddenly moves. Toni's nails rake down Bucky's chest and he flinches away from and then into the sensation, blind with the need to have her touch even if it hurts.  
  
He wants her to hurt him, sometimes. God, she always knew when to.   
  
"Sugar-"  
  
He begs, but she rakes her nails down to his belly, effectively silencing him. 

"Focus, Soldier."  
  
She commands, smirking down at him ( _the curve of her lips wicked and kissable and driving him mad_ ),  
  
"Two more times."

He was so close, he couldn’t hold out, couldn't think of two more things-

"Two more times, then I’ll let you cum. C’mon, Soldier."   
  
She urges him, one hand smoothing soothingly over his ribs, fingertips skating teasingly over the skin of his chest until it her whole palm settled over his neck ( _pushing the loose chain back into the skin_ ).

"You’re happy because I’m alive."

Bucky slurs, eyes fluttering closed, sucking in air desperately. He hears Toni draw a similar breath, is hazily happy he's managed to be right about that. He loves her, knows she loves him back even if she doesn't say it, but there's just something about hearing her lose her cool...

"The best thing in my life is happy because I’m alive."  
  
He laughs breathily, loopy with the high, hips jerking forward quickly twice, short and shallow and-

The tags thud against his collarbone. Toni leans in, kisses him, deep and searching, hot and wet-  
  
Licks her way into his mouth, holding him still inside of her, then moves back just far enough to say,

"Good boy."

And Bucky finally lets go. Damn near blacks out with the release of tension after so long, hands clamping down on her hips as he makes sure he fills her to the brim. He feels good - post-coital good and just... **good**. Lighter.   
  
God, he loves this woman. Loves the role she plays for him. Loves that she keeps his secrets, pries them right out of his lungs and keeps them safe, stops them from clogging up his airways until he dies.   
  
Toni presses her tag-imprinted palm into the place they're connected. Her eyes twinkle with mirth - they aren't playing a game anymore.   
  
Meaning Bucky can finally fuck her brains out, finish before the ridges of his name leave her skin, and then he can drag her to Steve's room for a threesome as a thank you for a session well-done.   
  
He rolls her over, finally ready to open his mouth, to remove the muzzle he kept on himself on these days-  
  
_"Yeah, you'd probably fuckin' suffocate."_  
  
He breathes her name against her skin, presses a kiss to her neck and says,   
  
"Lovin' you feels like flyin', Doll. Feels like freedom."   
  
And when she grins at him, all sharp-teeth, soft eyes, and poetic justice, it's to say,   
  
"Freedom? Don't get ahead of yourself, Barnes. You don't know how to handle me."

______

He handles her just fine. He handles her beautifully for a few hours, then gives Steve his chance to.


End file.
